A one-minute exercise to de-risk your life

Companies & civilizations begin their decline when: 

– Theory becomes more important than practice

– Preservation of the individuals becomes more important than preservation of the whole

– Skin in the game becomes something to avoid rather than to celebrate

This phenomenon is called probability matching.

It’s an adaptation to supply and demand mechanics (such as, “if I always go to the most fruitful bush, predators will hunt me there”)

15 MANAGEMENT QUOTES

Clarity is not micromanagement, but lack of clarity is lack of management.

People only voice a fraction of their doubts. The rest shows up later as indecisiveness, inefficiency, and ineffectiveness.

Employees love when their manager, while delegating a task, makes explicit what would be too little and what would be too much.

Don’t aim to be clear enough so that you can be understood, but aim to be so clear that you cannot be misunderstood. That’s superclarity.

Explain to each employee what abstract company objectives mean for them individually.

If you feel awkward while giving negative feedback to your subordinates, it’s probably because you believe the root cause of their mistake is an inadequacy of yours.

Unless you demonstrate to your subordinates that you are competent and trustworthy and have their best interests at heart, they won’t perceive your feedback as helpful, no matter how well you give it to them.

If you spot any signs of paralysis, lack of confidence, or other negative responses, make your feedback smaller, more specific, and in general, provide a small, clear, explicit first step for them to take that they feel they can take.

How good is a soccer coach who never attends his team’s games and training sessions, only meets the players in his office, and only evaluates their performance by looking at their report cards? He would be a terrible soccer coach. Yet, that’s how too many managers do their job.

The more you reward efforts without results, the more your people will focus on efforting rather than achieving.

Every time your actions demonstrate you are a fair, helpful, and effective manager, you build trust. And every time you waste your subordinates’ time, effort, or proactiveness, you break trust.

Meetings are not inherently wasteful; it’s that their attendees are not good at meetings. It’s your job as a manager to teach your subordinates how to be effective participants in meetings. You must coach your people.

Keep high standards for online meetings. They can and should be engaging and effective.

Personal judgment cannot be taught with procedures and trainings, because it is what happens outside of procedures and trainings.

During one-on-ones, spend at least 3 minutes discussing something more long-term: career growth, skill growth, sources of fatigue and frustration, etc.

The 15 quotes come from my course on Managing Remote Teams,
courses.luca-dellanna.com/courses/mrt

15 Management quotes

“studies that replicate are cited at the same rate as studies that do not” [in psychology]

"The majority (80%) of papers citing retracted research were published after the retraction date" [on covid]

(continues below)

https://t.co/bQI3T9sXt5
https://fantasticanachronism.com/2021/01/11/are-experts-real/

"Notorious fraud Brian Wansink racked up 2500 citations in 2020, two years after he was forced to resign"

"Even when they do take action, journals will often let scientists correct faked figures instead of retracting the paper!"

https://fantasticanachronism.com/2020/09/11/whats-wrong-with-social-science-and-how-to-fix-it/#or-Maybe-They-Don-39-t

Fraud is also a major problem.

An example via @luispedrocoelho

https://twitter.com/MicrobiomDigest/status/1266140721716719616?s=20&t=rEUemRn2rrAoQhFg4xZhCA

"And even after being caught for outright fraud, about half of the offenders are allowed to keep working: they have received over $123 million in federal funding for their post-misconduct research efforts."

No skin in the game

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1556264616682568

The previous article also notes another problem:

"a replication of a badly designed study is still badly designed"

And suggests a few solutions to the replication problem

https://fantasticanachronism.com/2020/09/11/whats-wrong-with-social-science-and-how-to-fix-it/#or-Maybe-They-Don-39-t


IMHO a core bottleneck to the reproducibility crisis is also that, in many academic fields, availability of funding is based on the reputation of the field more than anything else – and exposing a researcher as a fraud might lower funding for everyone else in the field.

I would suggest an academic metric indicating the ratio of studies one cited that didn't reproduce

"This paper has a non-reproducible citations rate of 50%"

"This academic has a non-reproducible citations rate of 50%"

"This field has a non-reproducible citations rate of 50%"

Anyway, the system is currently broken.

And we should stop trusting that "published" means "reliable"

The Reproducibility Crisis

The role of a manager is often defined from a business point of view only.

But what about THE ROLE OF A MANAGER FROM THE EMPLOYEES POINT OF VIEW? (thread)

1/ Managers talk so clearly & concretely not to be misunderstood. They don’t clarify  misunderstandings but prevent them.

2/ Managers give early and frequent feedback.

This helps workers know when they're going off track before it's too late. It thus prevents frustrating surprises or wasting efforts on actions that cannot be rewarded.

3/ Managers help spot and fill competency gaps in their people.

It's frustrating to be assigned a task and failing because you lacked the information or skill to succeed.

A manager helps fill such gaps before they lead to frustration.

4/ Managers make the employees jobs less frustrating.

This includes removing excessive bureaucracy, providing adequate tools, and addressing internal disputes and frictions between departments. 

5/ Managers proactively let their people know where they're spending time and efforts on the unnecessary.

6/ Managers proactively let their people know the hidden purpose of tedious tasks, well knowing that the difference between tedious and demotivating is purpose.

7/ Managers give motivated employees outlets to put their motivation to use.

8/ Managers find for their demotivated employees small but value-adding tasks they can succeed at.

9/ Managers respect their employees time. 

While requiring overtime might be  occasionally necessary, managers take proactive action to avoid unnecessary overtime.

10/ Managers give ambitious employees tasks which are ambitious enough so that, if the employee succeeds at them, there is enough windfall to reward them with career growth.

11/ Managers don't give up easily on demotivated employees, understanding that demotivation is just having learnt the lesson that efforts go to waste.

Therefore, they find ways to direct their people's efforts to tasks that will teach them the opposite lesson.

12/ Managers interpret abstract objectives, telling each worker what concrete actions to take and why.

They never mention company-wide objectives and core values without immediately afterwards explaining what they mean concretely to the individuals they're talking to.

13/ Summary: managers prioritize, delegate, help, explain, acknowledge, teach, and coach to ensure that their employees' time and efforts at work are worthwhile

(in terms of salary, growth, self-respect, security, or whatever resource the employee joined the company for)

A fascinating new paper on ergodicity.

It's quite technical, so I took the freedom to explain here some of its findings and add on some of its applications.

https://twitter.com/ole_b_peters/status/1528646949947285505?s=20&t=jgUMYPOPXHhNEb6UoMxAqA

The paper answers the question of "why do people cooperate by sharing resources"?

Common answers include reciprocity ("I help you today so you help me tomorrow") or specialization ("I share my food and you share your tools").

Instead, the paper shows how cooperation is an advantageous choice even without considering reciprocity, specialization, and similar indirect benefits.

In a volatile world, cooperation increases growth simply by reducing the irreversible losses caused by volatility.

The paper offers strong mathematical demonstrations, but consider the following simple example.

If you and I are hunters, and do not share food, a series of unfortunate "no catches" might mean I suffer famine and die.

This applies even if hunting is an activity that, on average, sustains hunters.

Conversely, if we share part of our catches, we ensure that no one suffers famine unless we both have a long series of "no catches" – a quite unlikely event.

This is the advantage of cooperation: it reduces the likelihood of losses that absorb future gains.

I explain the problem of irreversible losses here, with a story about my cousin and his short career as a professional skier

https://twitter.com/DellAnnaLuca/status/1339621378765537282

There is the common belief that sharing resources (eg, taxes) is good both for the individuals who produce less than average and for societies as a whole but not for the top producers, who give more than they get back.

This paper shows how this belief is (partially) false.

If production rates are constant, then yes, sharing is bad for top producers.

And if tax rates are 100% (imagine communism), sharing is also bad for top producers.

But if tax rates are appropriate, sharing is good even for top producers – for it smoothens irreversible losses.

A simple way to think about it is: stock markets usually have positive long-term returns. This means that if you stay invested, you'll reap good returns.

But if a market downturn causes you to disinvest, you won't be able to benefit from the following rise in stock prices.

Irreversible losses absorb future gains.

Sharing resources mitigates irreversible losses, thus enabling people to benefit from activities that offer "high average growth rates over long-terms"

Two sentences from the paper particularly struck me.

"Good risk management does not merely reduce the size of […] down-swings. It also improves long-time performance"

For example, if an employee quits your company, the cost is not just the time, effort, and sign-on fees to replace them.

It's also the fact that whatever skills & knowledge the employee accrued, and could have produced returns, are now gone.

Also: "individuals poll and share resources because, over a temporal sequence of interactions, it is individually advantageous for them to do so […] group selection is not needed [to explain sharing] because the interests of the group and individual are aligned."

I encourage you to read the full paper, or at least the non-mathematical parts.

I will include some comments on it as a bonus chapter of my book "Ergodicity" (link in the tweet pinned in my profile).

Summary: sharing resources mitigates irreversible losses, thus enabling people to benefit from activities that offer "high average growth rates over long-terms"

In the presence of volatility, this is beneficial even for top performers.

Ergodicity and cooperation

COUNTERFACTUALS

Does Omicron having lower fatality rate than Delta mean that it's milder?

Does a peak in cases during a mask mandate mean that masks do not work?

No. Let me explain it using counterfactuals

(short thread)

Example 1: Does Omicron having lower fatality rate than Delta mean it's milder?

Counterfactual: if Omicron was as severe as Delta, would its fatality rate be lower?

Answer: yes, bc of the below

Conclusion: Omicron's lower FR doesn't imply it's milder

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1475125312484749312

Does it mean that we cannot conclude whether Omicron is milder than Delta?

No, we can. But we must control for the relevant variables. For example, studying Omicron’s IFR in people with no vaccine nor prior infection. (Studies that do say that Omicron is just as severe as Delta)

Example 2: does this chart mean masks do not work?

Counterfactual: if masks worked, would the chart look like the below?

Answer: yes (bc masks are not always worn and mandates are enacted when cases rise)

Conclusions: the chart below doesn't imply masks do not work

How would the chart look like if masks didn't work?

Same shape, just higher (dilated over the y-axis).

This means that just by looking at similar charts, we cannot say whether masks work.

(How can we say whether they work? Physics – laws, not models – and/or RCTs)

Example 3: does Sweden having had a smaller first wave compared to Italy mean that restrictions do not work?

Counterfactual: suppose on 1st March 2020, 🇸🇪 had 100 cases and 🇮🇹 10,000. Would Italy have a worst first wave?

Answer: yes. So, a worse wave doesn't inform on policy.

Example 4: hospitals showed normal Occupancy Rate so they aren't overwhelmed

Counterfactual: would overwhelmed hospitals show higher Occupancy Rates?

Answer: they'd keep OR semi-constant by cancelling elective surgeries

Conclusion: OR isn't a good proxy for overwhelming

Counterfactuals

WHY DO MASKS SEEM NOT TO WORK?

Because contagion still happens where people don’t wear them (restaurants, households, etc)

Does it mean masks are useless?

No!

(thread)

Let me explain. First of all, a single unmasked exposure can be enough to cat the virus.

This means that if I wear the mask 95% of the time than go eat at an indoor restaurant while cases are high, and I catch the virus, it doesn’t mean masks don’t work.

The critical point: if I spend enough time indoors with many people unmasked AND cases are high, surely I will catch the virus, no matter how much I wear a mask in other occasions

BUT if I don’t spend much time indoors unmasked OR cases are low, how much I wear the mask matters

This means that when cases are high, transmission will sustain itself (within households and restaurants) even if people wear the masks at work and in the bus.

Hence the impression that mask mandates (which kick in when cases are high) do not work.

Why do mask mandates seem not to work?

In our brain, there are not one but two decision-makers:

The PLANNER (our cortex), which suggests what we *should* do

And the GATEKEEPER (our basal ganglia), which decides whether to do it

The interaction between the two determines most of human behavior

(short thread)

1/9

For example, frustration arises from liking an outcome but not the action that achieves it.

For example, our cortex (the Planner) might decide that we *should* hit the gym. But our basal ganglia (the Gatekeeper) might not like exercising. The result: we do not go to the gym.

This circuitry is what you would observe if you dissected a human brain – the basal ganglia can inhibit the pathway between the cortex and the areas sending orders to our motor areas.

Now, let's see how the Planner and the Gatekeeper work and how we can influence that.

The Planner (our cortex) can make plans but does not have direct access to our muscles. Hence, its plans are only suggestions.

Instead, the Gatekeeper (a brain part called the basal ganglia) cannot make plans but can block the planner's suggestions from reaching the muscles.

For action to happen, our cortex must suggest it and our basal ganglia must approve it.

Either missing means that we do not take that action.

Much of habit formation is about ensuring that both happen.



Most habit formation advice is about the cortex.

It's either about making better decisions (i.e., sending better suggestions to our Gatekeeper) or removing cues from our environment (so that no harmful suggestions are sent to our GK).

But most advice ignores the Gatekeeper.

So, what causes the Gatekeeper to open or close the gate?

It's simple: experiential memory. The gate opens when the suggested action is remembered to have brought positive emotions in the past.

Keyword: remembered. The Gatekeeper cannot imagine or plan, only remember.

The part of you that can imagine, plan, and consider indirect or long-term consequences is the Planner.

Knowledge, imagination, and planning can only generate good suggestions. But they do not guarantee execution, nor do they prevent bad suggestions (created by instincts).

Here is the key: the Gatekeeper can only see what actions the planner suggested, not why it suggested them.

It can see that the Planner suggested to go to the gym, but it cannot know that it's to lose weight.

It can only remember how we felt the last time we exercised.

And if the last time we exercised we felt cold, or sweaty, or tired, the Gatekeeper thinks, "I won't do something that causes me to feel bad." It will close the gate, the action suggested by the Planner (our cortex) won't reach our muscles, and we will not go to the gym.

The Gatekeeper cannot listen to the Planner's motivations for taking an action.

The only way to convince the Gatekeeper to open the gate is to create a new experience that associates a positive emotion to the suggested action.

Hence, habit formation must speak BOTH to the Planner and to the Gatekeeper.

To the Planner: better knowledge, more cues for positive actions, fewer for negative ones.

To the Gatekeeper: new experiences creating new emotional associations.

And much of habit formation is about realizing that our Planner (our thinking self) cannot just "convince" the Gatekeeper  to change. It can only do so indirectly, by planning actions the GK is already willing to take, and having those actions create new emotional associations

This thread is a short summary of the behavioral model I describe in one of the chapters of my book "The Control Heuristic"
https://amzn.to/3KplMIm

It's interesting what happens when the Gatekeeper closes the gate and the planner doesn't know why. It will CONFABULATE the reason.

In the example below, we do not go to the gym, but the Planner doesn't know why. He doesn't know it's because the Gatekeeper has negative emotional associations with exercising.

Hence, the planner will have to guess why we didn't go to the gym. Perhaps because it's raining?

Frustration is what happens when the Planner wants to do something but the Gatekeeper disagrees.

Frustration is the result of desiring an outcome but not the action that will achieve it.

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: 

https://typefully.com/DellAnnaLuca/QvThJdS